posted 02-27-2026 12:18 AM               

Following the rollback of the Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft on Wednesday, Feb. 25, experts will discuss the work ahead for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon and provide broader updates on the Artemis campaign.

NASA participants include:

• Administrator Jared Isaacman
  
• Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
  
• Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate

posted 02-27-2026 09:34 AM               

• Artemis II proceeds as planned in April

• Artemis III in 2027 is now an Earth orbit mission to test rendezvousing with one or both HLS landers (SpaceX Starship and Blue Origin Blue Moon) and ideally test components of the new spacesuits

• Artemis IV and V land on the moon; both missions targeted for 2028, as possible

collectSPACE

NASA shuffles Artemis schedule to hasten return of astronauts to the moon

As NASA continues to press forward with sending its first crew of astronauts to fly by the moon in more than 50 years, it is also making changes to its Artemis schedule, increasing its cadence from one lunar mission every three years to at least one annually.

With the Artemis II launch now targeted for April, pending the repair of a helium flow issue with the mission's Space Launch System (SLS) upper stage, NASA's leadership is looking to address safety and budget concerns by adding an additional mission to its manifest before attempting a landing on the moon in 2028.

posted 02-27-2026 08:55 PM               

Gateway should be viewed as the next step in exploration in space. The ability to live in space for a quarter of a century has been achieved with ISS. Gateway takes that further away from Earth, removed from the protective envelope of Earth's protective shield. We do not know how to do that yet.

Being able to live and work in deep space is something we eventually need to be able to do, if we want to go beyond the Earth/Moon bubble.

The plan was for Gateway to ALSO act as a staging post for lunar missions. We already know that Earth-Moon missions are possible, and Gateway opens up more of the lunar surface as possible landing sites, including the polar regions. Gateway negates the safety and need for free return trajectories.

Many of the reasons cited as negatives for Gateway are actually positives. Rescue from the lunar surface from Gateway could take a long time if the relative positions of the Gateway and the lunar site were not ideally aligned. Critics pointed out that this was a bad idea, when theoretically, rescue via an Earth-launched vehicle could be done sooner. However, good engineers will see this as something that could and should be built into the system, because we need to learn how to do this one day.

Gateway was sold as a multinational collaboration for the “broader strategic aim of Artemis”. All four of the partner nations dedicated their money, skills, and resources to deliver their part of the Gateway. ESA is supplying the International Habitation Module (IHAB) as well as refuelling and communications systems. Canada is building Gateway's robotic arm, Canadarm3, the UAE is producing an airlock module, and Japan is contributing life support systems and habitation components.

Should Gateway be cancelled, the US abandoning the most multinational component of the Artemis program, at a time when trust in U.S. alliances is under unprecedented strain, could be far-reaching. Could it drive the coalition of partner nations to undertake their own program?

Having a platform to use for testing and research of equipment, systems, processes and procedures, away from Earth's protection, but close enough for supply, repair, and servicing, is important because we just do not know yet how much of each we need.

Can we produce the things we need to live sustainably in space, make the parts we need to repair our home, and repeatedly travel from the Moon to Earth via Gateway, with the capability we already have? These are questions that need answering eventually.

Not every mission needed to go via Gateway to the Moon. It seems crazy to fly a bulldozer to the Moon via Gateway. But having that capability expands the horizon of space capability more than repeating the idea of every rocket launch having to use up most of its energy, just to go the first 400 miles, of the 240000 mile trip, every time.

I have never been fully committed to the idea of Artemis and the SLS, mainly because I view it as many steps backwards and also the irony behind using rocket engines and solid rocket motors, originally designed to be reusable, strap them on to a very large tank, to use on a multi-billion dollar launch one time and dump them in the ocean, when the folks next door are building rockets that can be reused. Many would consider this idea dysfunctional. NASA promoted commercial spaceflight, and now the launch capabilities of companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX allow them to get payloads like Orion into space using reusable rockets.

To me, the constant changing of direction and moving of goal posts does more damage than needed. This latest announcement sets the idea of signing up to do multinational collaborations with NASA back, doing so is more problematic now, and it seems to be yet another misstep. The list of collaborative programs that the U.S. has abandoned is growing very fast these days.